It was the way of fighting of him
who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically, who was the head
and father of the fighters of what is now called the old school,
the last of which were Johnson and Big Ben."
"A wonderful man, that Big Ben," said I.
"He was so," said the elderly individual; "but had it not been for
Broughton, I question whether Ben would have ever been the fighter
he was. Oh! there was no one like old Broughton; but for him I
should at the present moment be sneaking along the road, pursued by
the hissings and hootings of the dirty flatterers of that
blackguard coachman."
"What did you mean," said I, "by those words of yours, that the
coachmen would speedily disappear from the roads?"
"I meant," said he, "that a new method of travelling is about to be
established, which will supersede the old. I am a poor engraver,
as my father was before me; but engraving is an intellectual trade,
and by following it, I have been brought in contact with some of
the cleverest men in England. It has even made me acquainted with
the projector of the scheme, which he has told me many of the
wisest heads of England have been dreaming of during a period of
six hundred years, and which it seems was alluded to by a certain
Brazen Head in the story-book of Friar Bacon, who is generally
supposed to have been a wizard, but in reality was a great
philosopher.
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